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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27694868">The Three Rules</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/V9olet/pseuds/V9olet'>V9olet</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Boys in the dark, Canon Compliant, Consensual Underage Sex, Hurt/Comfort, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Pining!Cas, Soulmates, They have rules, but they don't talk about it</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 03:02:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Underage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>18,918</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27694868</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/V9olet/pseuds/V9olet</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Rule 1 is what happens in the dark, stays in the dark. </p><p>This story follows Dean and Sam during key moments throughout their lives (and many deaths) as they negotiate their night-time relationship and save the world.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>88</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Rule 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first rule they established in 1989, when Dean was 10 and Sam was 6.</p><p>“Hey, that’s not fair!”</p><p>“It is too. If it’s in the dark, it doesn’t count.”</p><p>It didn’t take long for this rule to settle in. If Sam crawled under the covers and had cold feet, he could put them on Dean and Dean couldn’t complain. Or if Dean pushed Sam out of the bed in the middle of the night, Sam would just have to suck it up. Or if Dean had a swollen eye because someone hit him (that could be any number of people, from Dad to the kid next door), it was ok if he cried into Sam’s armpit.</p><p>The second part of this first rule came about soon thereafter, when they accidentally woke Dad as they were wrestling on the floor late one night. John jumped out of bed, barely sober and waving his gun around, and he almost shot Sam as he cowered in the corner. Dean got the brunt of that one, as usual. </p><p>So the rule had its first amendment. If it’s in the dark and no one hears you, then it doesn’t count.</p><p>It wasn’t all pinching and punching and violence, of course. There was plenty of that — they were two energetic boys with an abusive father and no friends. But there was also a lot of cuddling.</p><p>Because they were two boys with an abusive father and no friends.</p><p>John didn’t mind if they slept together when they were at a hotel, but as they got older, on the rare occasions when they had more than one bed for the boys, it was expected that Sam and Dean would sleep separately. They were, after all, becoming teenagers, and always sleeping in the same bed wasn’t natural. Sam and Dean would nod their heads and never argue. They would put their things under their beds and brush their teeth and go about their routines, but every night, one of them would crawl into bed with the other, and as long as Dad didn’t find out about it, it was all fine.</p><p>But that led to the third part of this rule: You can’t talk about it in the day time, either — even with each other. Whatever happened in the dark, as long as no one ever found out about it and they never talked about it, it was fine. They didn't discuss that they slept together every night, that they cuddled and held each other, that they fought and tickled and pinched each other.</p><p>They certainly didn’t talk about how they would run their hands along each other’s naked bodies because it felt so good. </p><p>Dean’s feather-light touch on Sam’s back was one of the mystical powers of the universe. In the middle of the night, Dean would slowly drag his fingertips just above the surface of 12-year-old Sam’s back, so lightly, so gently that it was like spiderwebs ghosting across his skin. It caused an itch that he couldn’t scratch, and it felt so good he wanted to moan. So delicate. So intimate. But he couldn’t wake Dad, so he never made a noise, and they only talked about it in soft whispers into each other’s hair.</p><p>But in the day, talking about it was absolutely out of the question. It was understood. They are not discussing it, they are not looking at each other funny about it, they will never acknowledge it. Those were the rules.</p><p>Sam knew the rules were there for a reason. It was mostly for Dean. The way he saw it, ever since Dean was a little boy, he had to be a man. And in Dean's mind, men lied. Men said all kinds of things to themselves and to strangers and to their children, and those lies were there for a reason. They protected everyone. So did the rules. So as long as Sam played along and didn’t think of it as “lying” and instead thought of it as “the rules," everything was going to be fine.</p><p>The fourth part of Rule 1 didn’t come about until Sam was 14. Dean woke up one night with Sam’s mouth on his bare cock, and Dean was so startled he kicked Sam off the end of the bed. John had gone hunting, so they had the room to themselves, and they didn’t expect him back for at least three more nights.</p><p>Sam slowly stood up at the end of the bed. He was completely naked and his dick was rock hard.</p><p>“It doesn’t matter, Dean,” he said as he wrapped his hand around his cock, his eyes at half mast. “It’s in the dark.”</p><p>Dean was paralyzed. He and Sam had done some fooling around, sure. They liked to touch each other, and for the past year or so, they sometimes jerked off next to each other. But they had never used their mouths and they never made out. Those were part of the rules. Or at least, Dean had thought so.</p><p>But now he was mesmerized as he watched his little brother slowly stroke himself at the end of the bed. And he had to admit, watching someone find sexual pleasure was a turn on, no matter who they were. Dean reached down and wrapped his hand around his own dick, and Sam pulled off the flimsy hotel blanket so he could watch.</p><p>Sam ran his fingers through his hair, and he got harder and his fist started moving faster as he watched Dean. Sam was growing taller every day and had started to fill out, and when he put his arm up with his hand behind his back, he looked like a porn star.</p><p>Dean was coming before he realized what was happening. Sam watched every moment of it with his mouth open and his hand stroking his cock. But even at 14, Sam was a bigger thinker than Dean, and he waited until Dean was fully out of his orgasmic haze before he fucked himself in earnest. Then, and only then, while he had Dean's full attention, did Sam make eye contact and  stroke himself to orgasm. His body glowed blue in the light coming in through the thin curtains, and as his breathing became haggard, he ran his other hand down over his chest and then came all over Dean’s left leg.</p><p>Dean’s mouth was open and he couldn’t speak. He’d had sex with girls a few times by then, mostly quick fucks in the back of a car or behind a building, but he had never seen anything as erotic as 14-year-old Sam Winchester eye fucking him while he masturbated in the blue light of a hotel room.</p><p>He swallowed and cleared his throat. He made several attempts to speak before he was able to get a word out.</p><p>“You’re cleaning that up,” he said hoarsely and pointed to the cum on his leg. Sam dropped his head back, still breathing hard through the last of his orgasm, and Dean swore under his breath. Then Sam sauntered to the bathroom, got a wet wash cloth, and casually cleaned up the mess he and Dean had made all over Dean’s body. He then threw the cloth onto their dirty laundry pile and got into the other bed, still completely naked. He lied face down in the sheets and turned his face away from Dean.</p><p>Dean just shook his head.</p><p>“What the fuck, Sam.”</p><p>Dean liked to use his low-and-dangerous voice in circumstances like these — one of his many gifts from puberty — and he especially liked to use it on Sam. But per usual, Sam seemed immune and just ignored it.</p><p>Dean's head fell back to his pillow. What just happened? That was … well, it wasn’t completely out of the blue. They had fooled around. But the intensity of it was weird. The eye-fucking part was really weird. And it got Dean’s heart racing and threatening to get him hard again just thinking about it.</p><p>What right did Sam have to mess with his brain like that? He couldn’t say it wasn’t fair, though, because Rule 1. But he could add conditions.</p><p>“Fine, but no kissing. I draw the line at kissing. Anything up here on my mouth or down there on those —” he nodded is head around, “— other parts, you keep your lips away from them.” </p><p>Sam just grunted from the other bed, but it was enough. So the rule was amended. </p><p>Rule 1: Any deed done under cover of darkness is acceptable, as long as a) no one finds out about it, b) it is never discussed during the daytime, and c) it is consensual. They didn’t use those exact words when they were kids, but that is how Sam came to think of it later in life.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Rule 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It became a game for Sam. Let’s see how far we can push this.</p><p>By the time he was 15, he was taking full-time classes at Figuring Out Dean Night School. He had known since he was a baby that his brother loved him, would do anything for him, would take a bullet or a wendigo for him. But how far would he let Sam push before he drew a line? What were Dean’s boundaries? What was the true shape of Dean Winchester?</p><p>Sam felt like his brain was starting to burn up inside, and the older he got the more fuel he needed for the fire. He was getting bigger not just in his body, but he had become a voracious reader and consumer of information. He excelled in school, wanting to know everything he could learn, priding himself in his dedication to his schoolwork despite the chaos of their lives.</p><p>That was his day job. But his night shift started when the lights went out.</p><p>Dean liked to have his neck bit. He liked it when Sam licked first and then found the edge of a muscle and bit down. He absolutely lost it when Sam pushed it right to the limit of creating a mark, and Sam figured out exactly where that limit was. He could suck on the sensitive skin until his tongue hurt, but not too much or there would be evidence and Dean would be pissed. </p><p>But if Sam bit and sucked and dragged his teeth just hard enough to be a threat, Dean started hyperventilating and had to cover his face with a pillow.</p><p>Dean also loved Sam’s hair. During the day, he was starting to call Sam a “girl” and tease him because of his nerdy ways and his hippy hair, but at night he ran his fingers through it and sank his nose into it and whispered darlings into Sam’s ear. Dean absolutely loved to talk sweet late at night. He liked to tell Sam how smart he was and strong he was, how good he smelled and how lucky he was to have him, so smooth and warm, next to him every night. It was a litany of love poetry, flowery similes, soft and soppy, so different from Dean during the day, and Sam soaked it up into every bone and muscle in his body.</p><p>But Dean had his limits in this, too, because the more the years pressed on, the more it seemed that Dean needed to box some of that up. He never stopped the hot whispers, the sweet words, the adoration, but at some point it also seemed to hurt him a little. Once, after a particularly heavy night that had more than one tear from both of them, Dean seemed to have a hard time looking Sam in the eye the next morning, and that hadn't happened before. Sam didn't like it. It was as if the glass bowl where they held all this secret life was threatening to crack. Sam could tell that if they got any more intimate, it would be very difficult to Never Discuss It in the Daytime. </p><p>Because it was getting harder and harder to keep the darkness from the light.</p><p>So Sam eased up on some things. He stopped making quite so much eye contact when they touched each other. Some nights he would just go to sleep instead of rubbing his face into Dean’s chest or snuggling up to his chin and dragging his hair across Dean's nipples, raising his heart rate. Some nights he willed himself to relax and just rest his foot on Dean’s, a steady but innocuous contact. Some nights he let Dean fall asleep while he did homework, and he would crash in the other bed when he finally fell asleep.</p><p>When it got too intense, Sam backed off and Dean settled down. They found a balance. Dean continued to screw other girls, but mostly he just flirted constantly, and it was ok. It was part of the daytime script. Sam might get a little pang when that happened, but then he would remember that he was helping maintain the boundaries of Rule 1. </p><p>And as long as that rule was there, they were ok.</p><p>~~--~~--~~</p><p>Rule 2 came about the same time Sam was testing the boundaries of Rule 1.</p><p>They had gone to see some sort of butt rock band that Dean thought he liked. The bar was bright and loud, and Sam had brought earplugs because he thought maybe he would want to hear later in life. Dean spent the first half hour in the pit trying to get into fights with skinheads, but he eventually made it to the bar and bought a couple of beers (they had gotten fake IDs long ago). He walked over to where Sam was standing against the wall and handed him a pint. It was so packed that they could barely drink their beers without spilling, and Dean ended up standing right in front of Sam. </p><p>Sam considered Rule 1. They were in a public place and it wasn’t dark, but what if Rule 1 could be modified to the daytime? What if the important parts were that no one caught them, it was consensual, and they didn’t talk about it? He decided to try out a new rule.</p><p>Rule 2: You can do it in the daytime if you can get away with it and neither of you break character.</p><p>He stepped a few inches forward until he was flush against Dean. At first Dean didn’t notice because they often stood close together and they were in a crowded bar, after all. But then Sam reached down and slipped his hand into Dean’s back pocket.</p><p>Dean’s head stopped bopping to the music, and after a moment he took a slow drink from his beer. Sam gently squeezed Dean’s buttock, and he could feel Dean’s chest expand as he took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Sam briefly turned his head and brushed his nose against the back of Dean’s head, and Dean reached up to brush his hair back down. Sam smiled and slipped his fingers closer to Dean’s butt crack, rubbing up and down. </p><p>They stood that way for the rest of the headbanger song that the singers were belting out onstage, but as soon as it was over, Dean put his head back and slugged his beer. As he did it, he pushed his ass against Sam, rubbing briefly up against Sam’s cock, and then he turned around.</p><p>“You want another beer?” He was blank faced but good natured, like he was just asking his buddy if he wanted something to drink. Sam shrugged and finished his beer.</p><p>“Uh, sure," he said and gave Dean his glass.</p><p>Dean smiled — nothing sexy, no winks or anything, just a simple happy smile — and went off for more drinks.</p><p>Well, ok now. Sam had to turn his head to the wall so Dean didn’t see his giddy laugh. That went better than he expected. So Rule 2 is a go. This opened up a whole new area of study.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Rule 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They stumbled back to the hotel. Dean had stuck close to Sam for the last several songs, and he seemed determined to get shit faced. He had several shots of tequila followed by another beer, and Sam was trying not to worry about how much Dean was drinking these days. They were both very aware of how much John drank every night, and they both knew the dangers of hereditary alcoholism. But tonight Dean was Happy-Drunk Dean, and it made it difficult for Sam to worry too much. Dean had his arm slung around Sam’s shoulders, and they swayed back and forth as they walked down the sidewalk. Dean was trying to sing the last song of the set, but he didn’t know the words and he barely remembered the tune. It didn’t matter though, because it was clear all he really was trying to do was make Sam laugh.</p><p>They came up the road to their hotel, and Dean was the first one to notice.</p><p>“The Impala is gone.”</p><p>This meant Dad had probably gotten a call, and even though he usually brought the two of them on hunts these days, he would still sometimes take off without them. This also meant they probably had the hotel room to themselves for the first night in a while.</p><p>Dean dropped his arm and stopped singing and fished the keys out of his pocket. Sam looked around the empty parking lot as Dean opened the door, but no one was around. Everything was quiet.</p><p>“Dad?” Dean yelled as he came into the door and let Sam in. The lights were off and no one answered.</p><p>“He probably left us a note —” Sam started when Dean closed the door and slammed him up against it.</p><p>“So what the hell was that back at the bar?” Dean growled as he pushed Sam into the corner behind the door. Dean pushed his entire body up against Sam and shoved his cold nose to Sam’s throat. His face was rough and Dean smelled like booze and cigarettes.</p><p>“I haven’t the faintest notion of what, ngh —” Sam's Adam’s apple bounced as he felt Dean’s tongue in his ear, “— you’re talking about, Dean.”</p><p>“I thought public groping was outside the rules.” Dean was rubbing his hands down the outside of Sam’s jeans where Sam was already hard. Sam reached his hands around and squeezed Dean's ass as Dean unbuttoned Sam's jeans.</p><p>“I don’t remember any rules against public groping,” Sam said as he slid his hands up and under Dean’s shirt to his smooth back. “Groping isn’t talking about it. And no one saw us.”</p><p>“You’re just a dirty slut, Sammy, admit it.” Dean didn’t usually talk dirty, but he seemed really worked up tonight and he had Sam’s cock out in record time. “You know what next week is, Sammy?” Dean crooned into Sam’s ear. Sam’s head fell back against the wall with a loud thud. He couldn’t think about anything but the feel of Dean’s hands on his dick, so he shook his head, leaving it turned to the side to give Dean better access to his neck.</p><p>“It’s your birthday next week. You’re turning Sweet 16, baby boy.” Sam was vaguely aware that it was late April and his birthday was in a few days, but to be honest, it would be fine with him if he forgot about it altogether. He'd learned the hard way that birthdays and holidays were typically less disappointing that way. But apparently, Dean had not forgotten.</p><p>“I want to give you an early birthday present.”</p><p>And Dean dropped to his knees.</p><p>Sam’s mouth popped open as he watched Dean rub his cheek along the side of Sam’s cock and then run his tongue up the slit. This didn’t happen. This never happened. It had been part of the rules forever. No mouths.</p><p>“What are you — oh fuck,” Sam groaned as Dean took Sam’s cock into his mouth.</p><p>The fetishization of Dean’s mouth had epic proportions in Sam’s mind. He had the details of Dean’s lips memorized down to the position of each wrinkle, each freckle, and Sam had a running list of all the things he wanted to do with that mouth. This particular item was high on the list. It had never been top of the list, but now that Dean’s hot mouth was wrapped around his cock, he was having a hard time controlling his breathing. </p><p>He had never imagined something could feel so fucking amazing.</p><p>He gulped for air and made himself calm down and focus. He did not want to miss this. He wanted to memorize every detail. If this was a one-time thing, he wanted to lock it up tight. The room was almost completely dark but for a small sliver of white from under the door and some blinking red from a stop light. But Dean seemed to glow, his hair spiky in that way it got when Sam had been rubbing it, and his lips glistened as they slid over Sam’s cock. Dean had his eyes closed, and he was a little sloppy — Sam had no idea if he’d ever done this before, they’d never talked about it since it was against the rules — but it looked like he was having an out-of-body experience as he felt the details of Sam’s cock with his tongue. He was slow about it, holding the base of Sam’s dick with his hand and occasionally pulling up along the shaft as he followed his lips to the tip. Then he would slowly sink back down, feeling every bump and ridge along the way.</p><p>Sam’s vision was starting to get blurry as he watched, and he wiped his eyes. The movement seemed to bump Dean out of whatever reverie he was in, and he opened his eyes to look up at Sam. The sight of Dean’s bright, shining eyes took Sam’s breath away.</p><p>“Oh my god,” he breathed out as he reached down and ran his hands along Dean’s hair. He tried to swallow but it seemed that something was caught in his throat. A sob came out unexpectedly as it suddenly became too much. “Dean, oh my god, I’m gonna… ohfuck.”</p><p>The orgasm was a full body experience. The image of Dean on his knees in front of him, eyes sparkling and lips wet around his cock, was too much for him to handle. He splayed his hands along the walls to keep himself upright as wave after wave peaked inside him. His chest felt like it was going to explode, and tears were running down his face. He’d never cried during sex before, but the feeling was so overwhelming that he felt like he was going to crack open.</p><p>“Hey, hey,” Dean was standing and wiping his mouth, looking concerned as he rubbed his hand on Sam’s cheeks.</p><p>Sam grabbed Dean by the collar and backed him towards the bed. He was breathing as if he had just run a six-minute mile, and Dean gasped as he was thrown to the bed and Sam climbed on top of him. Without asking permission, without discussing it, without thinking a moment more about it, Sam reached his head down and covered Dean’s mouth with a kiss.</p><p>This. This was what was top of the list. This was what made him almost break the rules every single fucking night. He had wanted to kiss Dean so bad that he almost couldn’t even think about it without an ache that drove a spike through his chest.</p><p>The taste of him, the smell of him, of the two of them together, of sex and booze and bars and greasy food, this was all Sam wanted late at night. For a moment Dean didn’t move or react at all, but then he opened his mouth and grabbed Sam by the shoulders and held on like he was drowning. The kiss was sloppy and wet, their tongues in each other’s mouth and their breathing loud as they grabbed and pulled at each other. It seemed like they couldn't get close enough. The kiss rolled on and on, but eventually the frenzy of it died down and the kiss began to slow and deepen. Sam reached up and ran his fingers through Dean’s hair, felt the line of their bodies as they touched, and he poured every desire, every thought of the two of them together into the moment. </p><p>Dean stilled. The only part of him that was moving besides his lips was his labored breathing as Sam kissed him on his cheek, his eyes, his lips again. Sam kissed him over and over, sometimes hard and deep, sometimes soft and slow. Eventually, after a long, slow kiss that made him sigh, he pulled back to look at Dean's face, and Dean opened his eyes.</p><p>He looked absolutely terrified.</p><p>Well, shit. Sam guessed he’d probably found the boundary again. But he knew this man better than anyone else on the planet, and he knew what to say.</p><p>“It’s ok,” he said and ran his fingers through Dean’s hair, soothing and gentle. “We don’t have to talk about it. And we never have to do that again if you don't want to. It’s alright. I just…” His throat felt tight and the tears started to rise again. He knew that Dean couldn’t handle his tears right now, though, so he fought it down. “I just wanted to do that once. Consider it part of my birthday present.”</p><p>Dean’s breathing was starting to slow, and his eyes seemed to come back into focus. He looked at Sam’s eyes and his mouth, and the look of terror slowly faded. He nodded.</p><p>“But Dean?”</p><p>Dean nodded again. Sam gently pushed his hips down into him, a slow grind.</p><p>“Can I, uh, return the favor?”</p><p>Dean’s lips popped open slightly and his eyes widened. He took a deep breath and then nodded once.</p><p>It was like this enormous weight was lifting off Sam’s shoulders. He closed his eyes and gave Dean one last kiss, then he sat up and started getting undressed. He pulled off his shirt and finished taking off his pants and his boots. Dean hadn’t moved, was just watching him wide-eyed from the bed, and Sam gently made him sit up so he could take off his jacket and shirt. He unbuttoned Dean’s pants and removed the rest of his clothes. This was something they had done so many times before as they dressed and undressed in front of each other, but Sam had never done this knowing what was going to happen next.</p><p>Dean was pale in the dark, his skin still having a slight glow to it. Sam ran his hands up Dean’s legs as he crawled onto the bed, and he knew how much he was pushing it. They were  dangerously close to Dean’s limits, probably over the edge if he was being honest, but now he truly thought this would probably only happen once and he wasn’t going to waste it. For once, the door was open to him and he was going to explore every inch of what was inside.</p><p>A small alarm in his brain was going off, somewhere deep in the background, some part of him that had a sense of self-preservation. This is why there are rules, Sam, god dammit. Don’t go too far.</p><p>But fuck that.</p><p>He kissed Dean’s hip bone and ran his lips over his belly, feeling the light fur there. His hands came up and rested on Dean’s chest, just over his nipples. Dean very much liked to have his nipples played with, but for now, Sam was taking this slow. He was in no rush to bring this to its inevitable conclusion. He kissed a line up the middle of Dean’s chest and then forced Dean’s head back as he kissed up the front of his throat. Dean made a guttural noise that Sam recognized, the sound of Dean sinking lower into his arousal, and he smiled into the kisses. As he kissed his neck then slowly returned back down to his chest, Dean relaxed deeper into the mattress as his bones became limp. He moaned.</p><p>That’s right, Dean, just relax. It’s going to be ok.</p><p>He reached around Dean’s lower back and Dean arched up to let him, and for a moment Sam just held him tight, his face against Dean’s belly. Dean’s hand came up to his hair, slowly running his fingers through it as he brushed it away from Sam’s face, and Sam allowed himself one solitary moment to rest there as the ancient longing bloomed in his chest. Dean. Always Dean. Dean's body. Dean's heart. But he couldn’t stay in that place for long, he would be lost to it, so he let go and continued down Dean’s body.</p><p>Dean was leaking all over his leg, but he wasn’t as hard as he could be. Sam licked the salty precum off Dean’s thigh, bumping his cheek against Dean’s cock, and Dean instantly responded. His dick jumped and started to fill, a new bead forming at the tip, and Sam reached out his tongue to taste it.</p><p>“Ohhhhh fuck, Sammy,” Dean groaned, his head thrown back into the pillows. Sam swallowed again, not wanting the ocean inside him to swell too much at that sound, and he tried to just concentrate on what he was doing. He followed Dean’s example and grabbed the base of Dean’s cock then slowly — as slowly as he could — lowered his mouth all the way down. His nose nestled in Dean’s pubic hair and he breathed in, smelling that musky scent that was one-hundred-percent Dean, and he moaned into it.</p><p>Dean reached down and grabbed Sam’s head. He was now looking at Sam, watching him as he began to bob on his cock, and Sam reached up one hand and laced his fingers into Dean’s. Dean’s breath caught and he began holding Sam’s head as he slowly fucked Sam’s mouth.</p><p>That’s when the talking started.</p><p>“Holy fuck, Sam, I’ve wanted to do this for so long. Ever since you woke me up that one night, oh fuck,” he took in a ragged breath as Sam pulled back and went down again, “I’ve wanted to fuck you, have that sweet mouth on my cock, fuck your face and come all over you. Shit, you’re so silky smooth, I can feel the back of your throat, oh fuuuu….”</p><p>He was starting to speed up, holding Sam’s head as gently as he could but his hips were thrusting up and his eyes were becoming wild. “Every time I jerk off in the shower I think about your sweet fucking mouth. You have such a sweet fucking mouth, Sammy, I can’t believe you are doing this, holy shit.” That last part was on the in-taken breath, wispy and broken. Sam reached his wet hand up and onto Dean’s chest, smearing some of the wetness onto Dean’s nipple, and Dean’s knees bent and his head threw back.</p><p>“Oh fuck, oh no, Sam.” He was coming hard, filling Sam’s mouth with a sticky mess. Sam was surprised by the volume of it and tried to swallow but then started to gag. He pulled his mouth off Dean’s cock and replaced it with his hand, stroking Dean to the end as he sat up and made himself swallow. When Dean stopped thrusting his hips and finally started to soften, Sam let go and wiped his mouth, then crawled back up to Dean’s face.</p><p>Dean had his hands over his eyes and he was breathing hard. His face seemed contorted, and when Sam tried to pull his hands away, at first Dean wouldn’t let him. But then his hands dropped beside his head and he let Sam see him fully. Dean’s eyes were red and watering.</p><p>He was the most beautiful creature Sam had ever seen.</p><p>He kissed his eyes, kissed the tears on his cheeks. He gently kissed his swollen lips, then his chin and his hair. He came back up and looked down at Dean and smiled.</p><p>“Thank you for my birthday present. I think it’s the best one I’ve ever gotten.”</p><p>Dean reached up and grabbed Sam by the face, looking back and forth between his eyes, searching. That fear was slowly starting to come back, and it made Sam's heart break. Sam shushed him and turned to kiss his palm.</p><p>“Shh, it’s ok, Dean. It’s ok. We don’t have to talk about it.” He kissed him one last time then settled his head onto his shoulder, pulling a sheet over them. "Everything's going to be ok."</p><p>Right then and there, Sam made himself a new rule. One that maybe he would share with his brother, but maybe not. Rule 3: Nothing and no one will ever get between them. This was it for him. They needed each other like air and water. No matter what happened, his brother was the entirety of the first ring around his heart, a hard shell to protect him and keep him safe, something immovable and immutable. It was Dean and only Dean, and that would never, ever change.</p><p>Sam Winchester had known for years that he was in love with his brother, but as he drifted to sleep, that small voice in his head quietly whispered to him in the darkness. He was going to have to think of some way to survive this. The rules were there for a reason, and if he didn’t get back into the boat, they might just both drown.</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The Complication of Dad</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Not gonna talk about it. That’s what they’re doing, right?</p><p>Right.</p><p>Dean swallowed as the shower sprayed down his face. No matter how many times he shook his head, he could not get the images out of his head. He would never be able to get the images out of his head. And what the hell did he say last night?</p><p>“Oh fuck,” he whispered to himself and dropped his head to watch the water run down the drain. He’d been in there long enough that the shower was starting to run cold, but he wasn’t sure how he was ever going to be able to leave the bathroom. </p><p>Usually after an “episode” (that’s what he’d started to call them in his head, these intimate late nights with Sam), he would be able to get up in the morning, open the curtains, see the daylight, and move on. He’d become Daytime Dean, the one that was all surly cock-and-bravado, and he’d drink a big cup of coffee and they would go on with whatever fucked up day they were going to suffer through today. But he was having a very hard time coming out of the dark this morning. The intensity of the night before just wasn’t washing off, no matter how many times he scrubbed his skin with soap. </p><p>A flash of lightning invades his brain: Sam kissing him, kissing him deeply, with passion, as if Dean was his whole world, moaning into it, his big hands everywhere, all over Dean’s body. </p><p>“Fuck. God dammit.” He rubbed his mouth and sighed as he put his head back and let the cool water run down his face again. That kiss had fired every neuron in his body. He could still feel it deep in his gut, in his bones, in the tingling of every inch of his skin. He felt like he was going to explode from the intensity of it. He stroked his throat and felt how hard his heart was beating, just from the memory of Sam’s lips on his. </p><p>There was banging on the door and he jumped.</p><p>“Dean?” </p><p>He coughed and cleared his throat. “Yeah yeah —” </p><p>“Is there any hot water left <em>at all</em>?” </p><p>Sam sounded annoyed. It was a relief. Sam’s voice kicked something in his brain and the world stopped spinning for a second. He turned off the water and grabbed a towel. He wiped himself down and then wrapped the towel around his waist like he always did. He unlocked the door to let Sam have the bathroom, but he stopped in his tracks when he saw Sam leaning against the wall, facing the bathroom door. </p><p>For a moment, their eyes locked and neither of them moved. Neither said anything. Sam’s eyes were complicated, nervous and challenging and sad all at the same time, but then he just rolled his eyes and stood up. </p><p>Dean walked out and went for his bag of clean clothes. Sam went into the bathroom, locked the door, and started the shower. It took him about three seconds in the shower before he yelled, “Goddammit, Dean!” </p><p>Dean got a little smile and the spell was broken. Welcome to today, Dean Winchester. Everything is fucked up, like usual, but it’s going to be ok. </p><p>~~--~~--~~ </p><p>Dad returned later that day, and when he got back, he was all rushed to get them packed up and in the car. They had a hunt in Nevada, apparently, and they were headed to the desert. </p><p>Sam was taking longer than usual to get ready — actually, scratch that, Sam had been dragging his feet more and more these days, and it seemed specifically designed to piss off John — and John was yelling at him to get his lazy ass in gear. </p><p>“Dammit, Sam, get your shit in the car.” </p><p>Sam’s jaw worked and his eyes flashed in that way it did whenever he talked with John these days.</p><p>“I’m finishing up my homework,” he said with quiet tension as he sat typing at his laptop. “It’s not my fault that you gave us no warning and we didn’t know where you were or that we were leaving today."</p><p>John slammed the trunk and stomped over towards the hotel room. He had murder in his bloodshot eyes, and Dean moved to intercept. </p><p>“Hey, it’s ok, let’s just go down to the corner store and load up with —” </p><p>John shoved Dean backwards and he tripped over his bag, sprawling on the floor behind him. Now, Dean Winchester was no small man a this point. He was 20 years old and six feet tall, but John was just as tall, and he was older, meaner and more experienced. And besides, like the saying goes, if you pick up a colt when he's small, he never forgets, even when he’s a stallion. </p><p>Sam stood up and knocked his chair to the ground. Sam was as tall as them by this point, but he still had a lot of bulking up to do. Not that it mattered. Sam hadn’t backed down from his father in years. </p><p>“Hey, you leave him out of it!” Sam reached down to help Dean off the floor, but John made a move to his laptop and Sam knocked his hands away. Dean scrambled to get up off the floor, holding his hands out to keep them apart. As his father and brother stared at each other, Dean, his voice low and calm, his hands on John’s chest, convinced his father that they needed to go get food and supplies for the trip and they could swing by after. </p><p>Sam sat glowering in the back seat of the Impala for the rest of the day. It was getting like this more and more often. Everything was fine when it was just him and Sam, but when John was thrown into the mix, it was this weird toxic soup of posturing and ego. By the time they pulled into a hotel in Colorado, Dean was exhausted and he just wanted to grab a burger and get some sleep. </p><p>That night, Sam got under the covers and faced the wall, his legs pulled up under his chin. </p><p>The whole rest of the trip, Sam just sat in the back seat with his headphones on, listening to who knows what kind of pop trash on his old cassette player. It was probably what made Dean the most frustrated. When John was in the car or the room these days, Sam just closed up like a box. Nothing got in or out, and he barely looked at or talked with either of them. If Dean didn’t know that he’d get to talk with Sam in the middle of the night, whisper their worries and hold each other under the covers, he didn’t think he could stand the icy standoff between his brother and his dad. </p><p>So instead of talking, as they drove through the Rockies, Dean just looked out the window and watched the world pass by. Besides, it wasn’t like he didn’t have anything to think about. </p><p>Dean doesn’t do a lot of self-reflection, but for as long as he can remember he's always maintained a detailed catalog of his favorite things about Sammy. Ever since they were young, he’s had several running top ten lists, and those lists have only grown over time. Sam’s top ten breakfast cereals. The top ten times Sam was embarrassed. The top ten times he zinged Sam with a good come-back. Over the years the lists have changed in composition and prominence, but while he still keeps all those old ones in his back pocket just in case he needs them, these days the lists are singularly focused.</p><p>Sam’s most intimate secrets. Sam’s sweetest words. Sam's sexiest body parts (and while he would never, ever, ever admit this one, the top of that list is his brain). And the list of all lists: Sam’s Greatest Hits. Now he has at least four new top favorites for that one.</p><p>If he’s being perfectly honest with himself (and he really prefers not to do that, if at all possible), he’s really only comfortable with two of these four new faves though: flirting at the bar and worshiping Sam’s cock, which he most definitely did. Both of those were pretty fucking awesome. Especially the last one. That might now top the very tippy top of all the lists. </p><p>Except fighting for dominance is the whole Sam-sucked-my-dick slideshow that keeps playing in his mind, and then there’s the Sam-made-out-with-me-like-he-was — </p><p>His brain just kind of stutters to a stop. Sam made out with me like he was what, Dean?</p><p>Like Sam had wanted this forever. Like Sam was going to devour him whole. Like there was nothing else in the entire universe but the two of them. Like each kiss came with a whole encyclopedia of meaning, like all of Sam’s big brain was in those kisses and Dean could never even begin to understand what they meant. He’s just not smart enough. </p><p>He sighed and looked at his reflection in the side door mirror. He looked worried. He was barely 20 and he was already getting wrinkles between his brows. He took another deep breath and tried to relax. He wished he could turn around and talk to Sam, but what would they talk about? Certainly not the only thing on Dean’s mind right now, which is one of the many things they can’t talk about. </p><p>So no one talks much on the whole three-day drive to Nevada. </p><p>~~--~~--~~ </p><p>Dean thinks that on some level his dad already knows, but he’s just decided, either consciously or subconsciously, not to do anything about it. Because here they were, Dean 20 and Sam 16, and they were still sleeping in the same bed? </p><p>The Winchester family ran on booze, anger, hunting, and stories that they told themselves. In this case, the story was always the same: They didn’t have enough money to get two hotel rooms, so they were going to have to bunk in one room. And Sam and Dean slept in a bed together because they were brothers and that's what they'd always done. The thought occurred to him late on “that night” (which he’s now calling it, because all the other "episodes" have pretty much bit the dust), that he wasn’t worried any more about John walking in on them. John rarely came home in the middle of the night any more. If he was gone, he wouldn’t come back until the morning. </p><p>It’s like on some level John was in on the rules too, and, using the Winchester method of not thinking about it too deeply, he just ignored whatever might be going on in the dark. And so no one talked about it. </p><p>They finally arrived late on the third day in the desert outside Reno, Nevada, and they found a little hotel outside the city. The rolling hills of sage brush made the air smell sweet like honey, and as they got out of the car, a herd of wild mustangs trotted across the narrow road. Sam’s face lit up when he saw them, pointing out their range of colors and the size of the stallion and how quick and agile the foals were — and Dean couldn’t take his eyes off his brother. It was the first time he’d seen him smile since Indiana. </p><p>Sam turned to look at him while they were standing in the parking lot waiting for Dad to get them a room, and they made eye contact for the first time in days. It was like the air rushed back into the universe, and Dean took in a deep breath. Sam’s face softened, and he briefly reached over and squeezed Dean’s arm. </p><p>It was enough. Just a little touch to tell Dean that things were going to be ok. Dean nodded. </p><p>At the diner that night, things could almost be considered pleasant. They ordered their food and Dad finally told them about the hunt. He had "heard a rumor" about a creature with yellow eyes who was living in one of the abandoned silver mines, and that was enough for John Winchester. </p><p>Obsession. That was also part of the engine that kept the family going. </p><p>Dean glanced over at his brother while they were eating, and Sam was looking out the window and drinking his soda. Dean looked at his dad, who was absorbed with his own meal, and then around the restaurant. Not a lot of people here on a Tuesday evening. He grabbed his drink with his right hand and took a sip, then slipped his left hand under the table and onto Sam’s thigh. Dean put his drink down and continued looking around the room then glanced over at his brother again, but Sam had not changed his gaze out the window. Dean left his hand there while he continued to eat his pasta, and after a few moments, he felt Sam’s fingers cover his and their fingers intertwine. </p><p>He wasn’t prepared for how his chest would react. It was like something was squeezing the inside of him, and tears almost instantly rose to the surface. He had to put down his fork mid-bite and take another drink just to calm his breathing. Chill the fuck out, Dean. What the hell? Sam ran his thumb back and forth along the top of Dean’s hand and Dean squeezed Sam’s leg, his fingers wrapping as far around his thigh as he could reach. </p><p>His heart was racing, he was just so relieved that Sam was touching him again. But the relief also came with the maybe-not-so-unexpected result that he was starting to get chubbed up in his jeans, just sitting there holding Sam’s hand under the table. On instinct, he moved their hands up towards Sam’s crotch and found that Sam was getting hard too. </p><p>Ok, public groping is one thing, but both of them getting hard ons while holding hands as their dad sits across the table is problematic. And really, they aren’t even doing anything. He can’t speak for Sam, but for him, just sitting next to his brother right now with their fingers stroking each other is enough to get him hot-and-bothered. And he didn’t want it to stop. He wanted to rub Sam’s cock and hear him start to moan and maybe slide down in the booth a little more and he wanted to get his brother off, right there, right now. </p><p>He pulled his hand out of Sam’s grasp and pushed his plate away, putting his elbows on the table and covering his face with his hands. As he sat there rubbing his eyes, John must have noticed because he asked the waitress for a check. </p><p>“It’s been a long day,” he grumbled as he pulled out a crumpled handful of cash from his pocket. “Why don’t you two go get some sleep. I’ve got someone I need to talk to.” </p><p>That was John-Winchester-speak for “I gotta get my drink on.” </p><p>Dean just nodded into his hands and willed his boner to settle down so he could stand up again. Sam continued finishing his meal slowly as if he hadn’t heard his father talking to them, and John huffed and told them he’d meet them in the car. Dean took another big drink of water without looking at his brother, and they sat there for another full minute as Sam ate. </p><p>“You good?” Dean said gruffly when it looked like Sam was finished. </p><p>“Yep.” Sam wiped his mouth with a napkin. Their eyes met briefly as they got out of the booth, and Dean's heart rate spiked again.</p><p>They got in the car and returned to their hotel. As soon as he and Sam were inside, Dean announced that it was time for bed. Sam just stood there looking at him. </p><p>Looking annoyed. </p><p>“What?” </p><p>“Do we really have to be literally under the covers with the lights out in order to —” </p><p>Dean pointed a finger at him. </p><p>“Don’t you dare finish that sentence, Sammy.” </p><p>Sam just rolled his eyes and took off his flannel shirt. They got down to their tshirts and boxers, and Dean turned off the lights. </p><p>He felt nervous. He hadn’t felt nervous around Sam for years, but since “that night” he’s had this anxiety floating around him like a cloud. As he crawled under the covers, he wasn’t sure what to do. He reminded himself this is why he drank. He lay on his back next to Sam, both of them facing up towards the ceiling, and he wasn’t sure how to start. </p><p>“Maybe we should define Rule 2 a little better,” Sam said, his arms resting on his chest. </p><p>Dean turned to look at his brother. It wasn’t fully dark outside, so there was enough light coming in from around the curtains that he could see his brother’s face clearly. He had that face memorized; every mole and freckle and color of Sam’s face was burned into his mind. </p><p>“We have a Rule 2?” </p><p>“Something like, you can —” Sam took a deep breath, “— touch each other or whatever in the day, but no one can see you and —” he turns his head to look at his brother, “— you don’t talk about it. Or acknowledge it.” </p><p>Dean frowned in consideration and looked at the ceiling again. He ran scenarios in his mind: Hands under tables, rubbing up in crowded rooms, grabbing each other’s ass while walking through the forest — on a hunt. </p><p>He scrunched his face and shook his head. “We can’t do that on a hunt. I can’t be looking for monsters with a boner, Sammy, that’s not going to work for me. We need to keep our heads in the game or someone will get hurt.” </p><p>He could feel Sam nodding next to him. “Yeah, ok,” he said quietly, and the room became silent again as that weird nervous tension returned. He just wasn’t good with words. Or rather, the real problem was that when he opened his mouth, he wasn’t always sure what was going to come out of it. Sometimes he’d wake up in the morning and the first thing he think of was all the crazy shit he’d said to Sam the night before, and he could feel the heat rush to his face. </p><p>He knew all these rules were for him because he couldn’t deal. He sighed again and rubbed his eyes. </p><p>“You put up with a lot of weird crap from me, Sam.” </p><p>Sam turned over and propped his head on his hand. “Yeah, well. You’re a pretty weird guy, Dean.” </p><p>Dean huffed and couldn’t help the smile. “Gee, thanks.” But then Sam reached over and put his hand on Dean’s chest, and all the heaviness of being in the car with John for three days hit him like a truck. He rubbed his eyes again, as if that would keep them from watering. </p><p>“I hate how you and Dad fight all the time.” His voice sounded rough and emotional in his ears, and Sam sighed. </p><p>“I know.” It was quiet as Sam ran his fingers over Dean’s chest, a heavy and comforting weight. “And I know you don’t want to talk about it, but some day we’re going to have to.” </p><p>Something was off. Dean turned to look at his brother again. He didn’t like that note in Sam’s voice, like there was something else besides the usual conversation about the constant clashing between John and Sam. There was an element of finality to it. Sam had that wary-but-stubborn look about him, the look he got when he had made up his mind about something and Dean wasn’t going to like it. </p><p>“What’s that mean?” </p><p>But Sam shook his head. “We don’t need to talk about it now—” </p><p>“Talk about what, Sam?” Dean was starting to get mad. He didn’t like threats that he couldn’t see. </p><p>Sam looked like he didn’t want to have this conversation, but Dean could never handle Sam keeping secrets from him. It went against the natural order of things. Dean was the one who kept secrets, and Sam was an open book. That was how it was. He sat up in bed and Sam’s hand fell away. </p><p>“No time like the present, Sammy. Spill it.” </p><p>Sam turned onto his back again and looked up at the ceiling. He was quiet, but it looked like he was trying to figure out how to say this. That never bode well, and it just ratcheted up Dean's anxiety. He bit down on his lips to keep from saying anything while Sam thought. </p><p>“I think I want to go to college.” </p><p>Dean blinked. “What?” </p><p>Sam sighed again and turned his head. “College, Dean. You know, where people go to learn shit? Shit other than how to dig up a grave?” </p><p>Dean's brain stopped working. Everything froze. It was as if Sam was speaking another language, something alien, and he couldn’t understand it. In jumps and starts, a thought would start to form but before it got very far, blind panic and confusion crashed in. As the implications finally started to tumble into his mind, one after another, faster and faster, the anger rose in him like a heavy tide. </p><p>“And turn your back on your family?" His voice sounded broken and far away. "Is that what you’re saying, Sam? That you’re going to just up and leave —” </p><p>Leave me. That's what he was thinking. You're going to leave me. </p><p>Sam had sat up and was facing him, holding Dean's shoulders and trying to get him to look at him. “Dean, stop. Dean, listen, I'm just saying I’m <em>thinking</em> about it, that's all. I don't know what’s going to happen, or how I could afford it or if I could even get in, but ....” He looked at Dean, and there was the smallest hint of sadness. “Don’t you ever think about the future? Is this really what you want? This life?” </p><p>He couldn’t get his head around this. It seemed to come from no where. Sure, monsters he can handle because monsters are a known threat and they’ve been dealing with that since Sam was born. But Sam going to college? He couldn’t kill that beast. He didn’t even know what do with that level of threat. </p><p>"This is our life, Sam. Our life. You and me. This is what we do. And you just want to walk away?” </p><p>"No, I was thinking —" Sam's eyes were wide. He looked scared, but he pressed on, his face earnest and pleading. "Maybe you could come with me."</p><p>Dean threw up his hands. "What the fuck, Sam? And do what? I can't go to college. I'm just going to get a job bagging groceries for the rest of my life?"</p><p>Sam reached out for him as if to pull him into a hug, but Dean pushed him away. He swung his legs out of bed and stood up. He couldn’t be in this room. He needed to get away, to think this through and maybe kill something. He started putting his clothes back on. “I’m going out.” </p><p>“Dean, don’t. Look, I’m sorry, forget about it, ok? We don't have to talk about it again. Come back to bed.”</p><p>But Dean shook his head. “I need some air.” He put on his boots as Sam tried to talk to him, and he slammed the door on the way out.</p><p>That night, he spent a long time walking through the hills and thinking about the future, something he usually avoided at all costs. As the reality of it sunk in, he began to realize that thoughts like that one, something as big as Sam leaving him, leaving the family, going to college, was not one that could ever be unthought. </p><p>Of course, Dean didn’t know it at the time, but this was just the beginning. It would take several more years to fully manifest, for Sam to actually leave, but later he would look back on this as the moment when things changed for them. It was the end of something, maybe their childhoods, and the beginning of the rest of their lives.</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. The Complication of Going to College</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Dude, I’m fine.”</p><p>It was probably the eighteenth time Sam had said that in the past three days. He’d woken with a start in the passenger seat of the Impala, and Dean had made a quickly averted reach with his hand towards Sam. It was like an instinct that was withdrawn in less than a second.</p><p>Dean held up his hands in surrender. “Alright, princess, whatever you say," he said lightheartedly.</p><p>Dean had been insistently breezy in the weeks and months after Sam left college (he preferred to think of it as “leaving college” instead of “leaving Palo Alto because Jess-burning-on-the-ceiling”), and Sam couldn’t tell if it was because Dean was just trying to keep things upbeat for Sam or if it was… something else.</p><p>Sam rubbed his face and looked around, trying to figure out where they were. It was mid-afternoon and all he saw for miles and miles were flat fields with rows of corn and soy beans. So they could be in any number of mid-Western states. They were on their way to check out a new lead in “Buttfuck, Nebraska,” according to Dean, and they’d already been driving for five hours.</p><p>“You hungry?” Dean was throwing him sidelong glances. This whole mother-hen routine was starting to get annoying.</p><p>“Uh, sure.”</p><p>“Great. I just saw a sign for the best cheeseburger pizza in the state. The best in the state, Sammy! Mmmmmm….” Dean leans over and gets closer to Sam and his voice drops low. “Cheeseburger pizza. Amiright?” He waggles his eyebrows.</p><p>Sam couldn’t help but smile. His brother had lost his mind. “Sounds like a heart attack on a plate.”</p><p>“Exactly! Perfect!”</p><p>Dean kept the little smile on his face as they turned off at the signs for Hi-Way Pizza. It was a tiny little place at the end of a dirt road, which was exactly the kind of place Dean seemed to like best -- creepy, greasy and obscure, with only three other people in the joint. Dean hadn’t even sat down in the booth before he started flirting with the waitress, and with a wink he ordered the largest cheeseburger pizza that they made. They sat opposite each other and Sam looked out the window at the cars passing on the highway as he nursed the beer she set in front of him.</p><p>They’d had plenty of silence between them in the few months since they’d been back together on the road. Dean had taken on this attitude, apparently, that the less they talked about everything, the happier they both would be, so they almost exclusively discussed their hunts. They spend hours looking through Dad’s journal, scouring the web, reading newspapers in every town they passed through. Sam thought Dean was mostly doing it because this was simply what he did -- focused on the hunt.</p><p>But the longer it went on, the more Sam realized that Dean was keeping them in a carefully controlled relationship that dutifully avoided the fact that they had barely spoken for two years. It didn’t stop Sam from thinking about it, however.</p><p>When Sam had finally decided to go to college at 19, it was because he’d come to the inevitable conclusion it was his only choice. He knew that Dean wouldn’t see it that way, but Sam seemed to be the only person in the family with any interest in thinking about the future. He was forced to be the one who planned ahead because no one else was going to do it.</p><p>This life, this obsession that John and Dean were addicted to, was only going to end one way, with one or both of them killed. Setting aside the fact that Sam simply couldn’t stand John any more, hated the way he was more of a drill sergeant than a father, really hated the way he treated Dean and had left him all alone to raise Sam — despite all that, he couldn’t abandon them entirely.</p><p>Over the years, he tried to convince Dean that if he really cared about Sam, he would quit this life and come with him. They could both escape their father’s obsession, get away from the monsters and just be together. But the more the months and then years went on, he finally came to terms with the fact that Dean couldn’t see the door. There was no way out for him. Dean  believed John when he said that the world was out to kill them and their only choice was to fight.</p><p>So Sam studied hard. He got into Stanford. He met a girl, and she was great. He put distance between himself and Dean. For two years, they rarely spoke, much less spent the night together.</p><p>Sam never saw it as breaking the rules. The walls around his heart had only gotten stronger over the years, but he eventually had to crawl into that space inside himself alone, without Dean. Under it all, in the deep, hidden recesses of his mind, it was him and Dean, always him and Dean, until the end. But for the whole time he was in school, his focus was on graduating and creating something stable. Something sustainable. Then maybe he could convince Dean to settle down….</p><p>The waitress brought their pizza and Dean grabbed the biggest slice. Sam realized Dean had already finished his first pint and had ordered another. As Dean took a deep draft on the beer, emptying half in a few swallows, Sam frowned.</p><p>“Are we still driving after this?”</p><p>Dean just rolled his eyes and kept eating. “It won’t be the first time we’ve had a couple beers and hit the road, Sam.”</p><p>They fell back into silence, but for the first time in a long time, Sam didn't turn to look back out the window again. This time Sam watched Dean.</p><p>Sam had spent most of his life watching Dean. Watching how he acted, how he dressed, what he said. Imitating how he cleaned his weapons and practiced lock picking. Followed as he kicked in a door, Dean to the left, Sam to the right, guns drawn and eyes alert. He realized now, however, while sitting over cheeseburger pizza, that he had been so involved in his own head in the past few months, he hadn’t been paying that much attention to his brother.</p><p>In many ways, Dean was the same as he always had been. He was cocky and outgoing. He flirted with everyone he met. He hustled pool and picked up chicks. He would just as soon shoot someone as talk to them. He was goofy and playful and badass. He could also be singularly focused, and he spent hours pouring over newspapers and his dad’s journal.</p><p>But as Sam looked at him now, he started to see some of the differences. These days whenever they were talking, Dean stayed firmly buoyant. He was almost always in a good mood, and it slowly dawned on Sam that Dean was truly and honestly happy to have Sam there on the road with him. That happiness was real. Dean was almost giddy about it, in fact, although he was usually careful in keeping that bubbly energy fairly contained. But even with Dean's exuberance, there was a new sobering seriousness there as well. In the quiet moments, especially when he didn't think Sam was looking, there was the slightest hint at an unnamed tension in his eyes. Sometimes Dean would start to reach for him, but then he’d realize what he was doing and pull away and look out the window. He also stayed away from topics that might bring Sam down. They only talked about Dad in the context of finding him. They rarely talked about Jess. Or college.</p><p>And they certainly didn’t talk about the fact that they were sleeping in separate beds without any semblance of the night-time relationship they’d had for most of their lives.</p><p>At first Sam thought that it was just out of respect. Sam had spent the first few weeks shellshocked by Jess’ death, fueled by anger and the need for revenge, waking up most nights feverish and tangled in the sheets. But Dean never came to him, only talking to him after he had woken up, and as time went by Sam began to adjust. The nightmares still came but they weren't as feverish. And Dean remained the same as always. Funny. Impatient. Dickish. Focused.</p><p>And not really looking Sam in the eye.</p><p>“What?” Dean was looking at Sam now, a third piece of pizza in his hand. He looked annoyed and slightly wary. “Do I have something on my face? Why are you looking at me like that?”</p><p>“No reason,” Sam shrugged and took a sip of his beer. He got a little smile as he continued to watch Dean.</p><p>Dean narrowed his eyes in suspicion.</p><p>“You didn’t put superglue on my pint glass or anything, did you?” Dean looked suspiciously at his beer, but Sam just smiled bigger.</p><p>“No, nothing like that.” Sam dropped his eyes, grabbed another slice of pizza, and leaned back. Operating purely on instinct, which Sam had learned to trust over the years, he looked out the window and stretched his legs under the table. He closed his legs together, capturing Dean's leg between his, and he crossed one foot over the other, trapping Dean’s foot between his legs. He glanced back at Dean as he took a bite, but the smile slipped from his face as he watched his brother.</p><p>Dean was about to take another drink, but he had stopped midway to his mouth. After a moment, he slowly put his glass back down on the table. He was staring at his beer unseeing and it looked like he wasn’t breathing. Dean swallowed heavily and closed his eyes for a second, and the sight of it almost made Sam gasp and moan out loud as a sharp pang of desire hit him in the gut. But then Dean opened eyes and raised his glass, finishing his beer.</p><p>Sam was mesmerized. For the rest of the meal, Sam watched Dean's face and rubbed his foot on the back of Dean's calf. They didn’t speak and Dean didn’t look at him, but there was a tension there that had Sam's skin tingling. Dean's breathing was tight and he kept swallowing thickly, and as he finished his third pint, Sam asked for their bill.</p><p>Sam followed Dean closely to the car. As Dean was unlocking the door, Sam finally broke the silence.</p><p>“Let’s stop soon.”</p><p>Dean finally raised his eyes, and for the first time in a very long time, Sam saw real fear in them. He also saw a question. Sam held his eyes and nodded briefly.</p><p>Dean’s mouth fell open slightly and he licked his lips. He let out a breath like he’d been holding it in forever, and he nodded back. They got into the car and back onto the highway, but after a few exits, they saw a sign for a motel. They pulled in and paid for a room, two queens, like normal, and Dean let them into their room and closed the door.</p><p>He immediately grabbed two plastic cups from the small counter and pulled out a bottle of whiskey.</p><p>“I see,” Sam said as he took his cup. “I guess we’re getting drunk.”</p><p>Dean didn’t look at him or say anything as he filled half his cup and sat heavily in a chair next to the small round table. Sam watched Dean down half his double shot, and he moved over to the edge of the bed closest to him. Close enough that they could knock their knees together. Sam took sip of his whiskey and then set it on the table.</p><p>“You tired?”</p><p>Dean looked up at him sharply, his eyes wide. But he almost immediately looked back at his glass.</p><p>“Um, I, uh….” Dean ran his hand through his hair and then rubbed the back of his neck. He opened his mouth again to say something, but nothing came out so he closed it again.</p><p>“Dean.”</p><p>Dean let out another breath at the sound of his name. It seemed like he was having trouble breathing. But he finally raised his eyes to his brother’s.</p><p>“Let’s get in bed.”</p><p>Dean didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He just looked at Sam as if he was frozen, his eyes wide, trapped in a paralysis that he couldn’t break, and he blinked twice as he stared at Sam’s face.</p><p>Why hadn’t Sam seen this before? Why hadn’t he realized that Dean was utterly terrified?</p><p>Sam stood and walked over to the window. He closed the curtains then flipped off the light, plunging the room into darkness. He took off his jacket and his button up shirt, sat down and took off his boots and his pants. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness and he realized that Dean still hadn’t moved.</p><p>In just his boxers and a tshirt, he went over to Dean and unlaced his boots. He gently took the empty plastic cup that was crumpled in Dean’s fist out of Dean’s hand, and removed his jacket and his flannel shirt. Dean’s eyes glinted in the dark as Sam pulled him to standing and reached for the buttons of Dean’s jeans. It was only then that Dean seemed to snap out of his trance.</p><p>Dean swatted his brother’s hands away with a grumble as he took off his pants, and Sam went to the bed closest to the bathroom -- their bed together, traditionally -- and slipped under the covers, laying his head on the pillow as he watched Dean.</p><p>Dean just stood there in his boxers and tshirt, frozen to the spot.</p><p>“Sam?” It came out shaky and rough, as if he hadn’t spoken in a very long time.</p><p>“Dean, come to bed.” Sam’s voice was soft and gentle, saying the same words he’d said so many times in their lives, a quiet reminder that this was normal. This was what they did. Everything was ok. As intended, the tone seemed to slip past some of Dean’s defenses and his shoulders visibly relaxed a little. He slowly took a step forward, then another, and he crawled into bed next to Sam, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling.</p><p>Sam slowly reached over and laid his hand on Dean’s chest and Dean startled.</p><p>“Shhhh,” Sam hushed as he moved closer and slowly raised Dean’s arm so he could slip his head underneath. He squirmed up close to Dean’s side and laid his head on his shoulder, pulling Dean’s arm around him. He tangled their feet together as he reached his arm around Dean’s chest, tucking his hand under the other shoulder.</p><p>They had slept like this more times than Sam could ever count, with his head tucked under Dean’s chin and the steady rhythm of Dean’s heart in his ear. He felt his whole body sink into his brother as the weight of the world seemed to float away. He hadn’t realized how much he missed this, missed the solid feeling of his brother in his arms, of the safety that he had never felt anywhere else or with anyone else.</p><p>This was home. Dean had always been home.</p><p>He squeezed a little harder and turned his face into Dean’s shoulder, letting the tears of longing and loss build behind his eyes and spill over onto Dean’s shirt.</p><p>Dean's last defenses finally fell.</p><p>“Hey,” Dean said gently and reached his other arm around Sam’s shoulders to pull him close. Sam felt Dean’s nose in his hair. “Hey, I’m here. I’ve got you.”</p><p>It was as if something opened inside Sam that he had kept closed for years. The locks sprang off and the doors flew open and all the longing and pain of the past few months and years flooded Sam’s chest. A sob escaped his throat, and Dean rolled onto his side and pulled Sam into a full embrace. He kissed Sam’s forehead and whispered into his hair.</p><p>“I’m so sorry, Sammy,” he whispered and stroked his hair and the tears off his cheeks. “I never meant to pull you back into all this shit, I really didn’t. I never should have come to your house, I should have left you there with … I should have just left --” Dean’s voice cracked and he pulled Sam closer.</p><p>“It wasn’t your fault,” Sam shook his head and nuzzled into Dean’s neck. He rubbed his wet cheek into Dean’s skin, feeling the familiarity of that skin and the deep comfort of Dean’s scent. He breathed it in, filling his head with the smell of everything important in the world. It made a new rush of tears come to his eyes. “None of this was your fault.”</p><p>“It was selfish of me.” Dean’s voice was fully broken now, not even trying to hide the fact that he was crying into Sam’s hair. “I just couldn’t do this without you and I wanted you to --” He squeezed Sam closer. “I just wanted you with me,” he finally whispered, like a deep confession. “I’m so sorry.”</p><p>Sam’s mouth opened and he tasted Dean’s neck. Dean was warm and salty, his skin sliding smooth across his tongue, and it was the taste of familiarity, of all the things that he was missing and had missed for so long. He pulled himself up along Dean’s body just as Dean’s head bowed down, and their lips opened to each other. Dean’s hand came up into Sam’s hair, closing his hand into a fist, and Sam gasped into Dean’s mouth.</p><p>The mood dropped into a lower, more urgent register, and Dean was on top of Sam, his hands pushing into Sam’s shirt, and Sam spread out on the bed for him, throwing his head back and grabbing onto the headboard.</p><p>“I missed you so fucking much,” Dean growled into Sam’s ear as he pushed Sam’s legs open and pinned him to the mattress. He grabbed Sam’s face in his hands and kissed his cheeks, his eyes, his mouth. “I never thought I’d kiss you again.” He kissed him on the mouth as he ground his hips. “I didn’t think you would --” his voice caught again and he kissed Sam deeply.</p><p>Sam pulled back enough to rest their foreheads together, and Dean stilled. They breathed heavily as they lay there with their foreheads touching.</p><p>“You didn’t think I would what?” Sam asked, his heart beating hard in his chest.</p><p>Dean shook his head slightly. “Want this.”</p><p>Sam pulled back and looked at Dean’s face, then gently rolled them over so he had his arms around Dean’s neck as he laid halfway over him. He looked at Dean, but couldn’t really see his face in the dark. Without thinking about it, he reached over and turned on the light.</p><p>Dean suddenly put up his hands as if to ward something off, but Sam just shushed him and wiggled down so Dean was partially pinned.</p><p>“I want to see you,” he said and Dean’s eyes snapped to his. “Let me see you.”</p><p>Dean’s head popped back a little so he could get some distance and look at Sam, and he got that wary look in his eye again. Like at any moment Sam was going to turn against him. Like Sam was going to hurt him. His heart cracked a little at that moment, and he never wanted to see that look on his face again.</p><p>“I love you.”</p><p>The words just slipped out of Sam. He knew he was breaking the rules, but fuck the rules. He was tired of hiding in the shadows. He wanted to see the green of his brother’s eyes and his long eyelashes and how his freckles had deepened in the spring sun. His brother was so painfully beautiful, his features so delicate and fierce, and Sam was awed by it. “I love you more than anything. You know this. I’ve told you this. Everything I did, going to college, trying to have a normal life, I did it with the hopes that you would come with me. Eventually.”</p><p>Dean swallowed and looked towards the light. His face changed and a bitterness came into the tightness of his mouth.</p><p>“I know you loved Jessica,” he said, his voice low and rough. “You can’t deny it, not to me, Sam. I know you. I saw you with her. You were happy. And I know what it did to you when... well, since we’ve been back on the road.”</p><p>“Dean, look at me.”</p><p>Dean swallowed again but looked back at Sam. Sam ran his fingers through Dean’s hair and down his cheek. He nodded.</p><p>“I did love Jess.” Dean tried to turn his head away but Sam wouldn’t let him. Dean looked like he might get pissed and push Sam off him, but Sam just held him more firmly and his voice became harder. “No, listen to what I’m trying to tell you. I did love Jess, and I always will. She was a good woman, and she loved me. But she was never the love of my life. She was never going to even come close to how I felt about you. How I feel about you. I might have even asked her to marry me, but I always imagined you coming back to me...”</p><p>“And what? We were all going to live together like one big happy suburban family? All three of us? Really, Sam? That was your plan?”</p><p>Dean pushed Sam off him and Sam let him. He could see that Dean needed a little space. But even though he was angry, the harshness of the words didn’t extend to Dean’s eyes. It didn’t have a lot of fire behind it.</p><p>Dean rubbed his face and sat up against the headboard and Sam sat back on his heels in the middle of the bed. Dean dropped his head forward and looked at his hands, his shoulders slumped.</p><p>“I know you told me that this was what you wanted,” his voice softer and without much bite, but with a deeper bitterness. “I know you wanted us to settle down somewhere, but I just don’t see how that could have worked, Sam. What was I supposed to do in this little scenario? Buy a house across the street and find some chick and get married, mow the lawn like an asshole and have two-point-five kids and a labradoodle? And every other Wednesday you and me get together for a fuck-and-cuddle? Is that what you were thinking? Because that just wasn’t going to happen for me. Not now, not ever.”</p><p>“You don’t know that,” Sam said softly and Dean looked up at him again, meeting his eyes. For the first time, there was some doubt there, like maybe Dean could imagine such a thing, but he quickly shook his head and threw up his hands.</p><p>“Well, it doesn’t really fucking matter, does it? Because here we are. In another random fucking motel in the middle of nowhere, hunting down the demon who killed our mom and your girlfriend, and I guess Dad was right. We’re never getting out of this shitty life and you’re never going to get that white-picket-fence pipe dream of yours. It’s not gonna happen, Sammy, and --” His hands fell and he threw his head against the wall, banging it once and then again for good measure. “And I’m sorry. I really, really wanted you to have that, Sam. I really did. I tried to give you that.”</p><p>The tears were welling up again and Dean put his hands up to hide his face, but Sam climbed over and into Dean’s lap, pulling Dean's hands away.</p><p>“Hey.” Sam kissed his eyes and tasted the salty tears. He thought not for the first time how fucking privileged he was to know the taste of Dean’s tears. “This is what I want.” He kissed his eyes again then down his cheeks. “I want you.” So softly that it was a ghost over Dean’s skin. “I want you.” Into his ear, making Dean melt into him and reach his arms up around him, pulling him close. “I want you.”</p><p>The kiss was slow, Sam sitting on Dean’s lap, his face angled down and his arms around Dean’s neck, possessing Dean in a way that Dean always seemed to need, pulling his face up in a way that drew moans from him. And for the life of him, he could not fathom why they had waited all these months and years for this. He kissed Dean deeply, moaning into the kiss as he felt his brother harden beneath him, and Dean pulled him lower onto the bed so they were laying down together.</p><p>Dean grabbed Sam’s ass and thrust up against him. Sam reached around behind him and took Dean’s cock out from his boxers and pushed it up against his butt crack. He pushed Dean against him, stroking his cock as he rubbed his body up and down. He kissed Dean again and Dean’s breath caught.</p><p>“So beautiful,” he said and started crawling down Dean’s body. “You are so beautiful to me.”</p><p>He knew what this did to Dean. Dean never allowed himself to think of himself that way, like he could be beautiful to someone. Like he could be worthy. It made him fall apart, every time. Dean’s breath rattled as he brought his hands to his chest, rubbing there as if it hurt. Sam continued to kiss down Dean’s body, reacquainting himself with the only other body on the planet that he knew as well as his own, every hair, every mole, every scar. Well, almost every scar. He realized as he kissed Dean’s hipbone that there was a fresh red pucker in Dean’s hip he had never seen before, and he kissed it gently and long enough to make Dean look up.</p><p>His head fell back again. “Vampire hunt, 'bout a year back.”</p><p>Sam crawled back up to Dean’s face, leaning down and looking at him carefully. Dean’s eyes got wide again as he glanced to the light and then back to Sam’s face. It was going to take Dean some time to get used to being this intense with the light on.</p><p>“Tomorrow, you’re going to show me every scar.”</p><p>Dean took in an unexpected breath and then let it out slowly. He nearly shivered as he swallowed.</p><p>“Ok.”</p><p>Sam kissed him hard, thrusting his hips forward and grinding into Dean. It was fucking intoxicating, how much Dean needed him and didn’t even fully understand it himself, how he didn’t see it but it was so fucking clear to Sam. This man was his, was his to the core, everything about this man was <em>his</em>.</p><p>“You’re <em>mine</em>, Winchester,” he growled and went down and took Dean’s cock into his mouth. Dean gasped and laughed at the same time.</p><p>“You are such a fucking -- “ Dean gasped again as Sam slid all the way down, “-- drama queen, fucking hell.”</p><p>Sam laughed around Dean’s cock. He pulled off with a loud pop. “<em>I’m</em> a drama queen?”</p><p>Dean tried to suppress his laugh as he put his hands behind his head and thrust his hips up.</p><p>“Just suck my fucking cock, Sam.”</p><p>Sam chuckled and obliged.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. The Complication of Angels and Prophets</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Chuck, open the goddamned door!”</p><p>Dean pounded on the front door for the third time and was stepping back to kick it in when the door opened. Chuck Shurley, prophet of the lord, stood there in his grungy bathrobe, talking on the phone.</p><p>“Yeah, Cas, he’s here. Yes. Ok. Good luck.”</p><p>Chuck hung up the phone and walked back into the living room without a hello. Dean swallowed hard, trying to locate the fire that had just been fueling his outrage, but it seemed to whoosh out of him as he followed Chuck into his falling apart house. Instead, the fire was replaced by a host of moths that swirled inside his chest.</p><p>“You want a drink?” Chuck asked as he poured whiskey into a glass.</p><p>“It’s 8:30 in the fucking morning, Chuck.”</p><p>Chuck walked over to him and handed him a glass.</p><p>“That’s never stopped you before,” Chuck said a little sadly.</p><p>Great. This is just great. Dean took the glass and slammed back the whiskey. Chuck poured him another shot, then shuffled over to the couch, pushed some papers aside, and sat down heavily as he rubbed the bridge of his nose.</p><p>“Have a seat.”</p><p>Dean wasn’t going to sit down. He drank his second shot and looked at the glass. This was some piss-poor rotgut, even by Winchester standards. Writers really must be stone broke.</p><p>“So, uh.” He cleared his throat. He wasn’t sure how to start, but as he looked at Chuck, he sighed. “I guess you know why I’m here.”</p><p>Chuck nodded reluctantly. “Yes, unfortunately.”</p><p>Dean squinted as the interchange at the door caught up with him. “Wait, why were you on the phone with Cas?”</p><p>“Oh, he, uh…. No reason,” Chuck said, his voice a little high.</p><p>“Right, more secrets, perfect. You know what? I don’t care. All I care about is protecting my brother. And so help me, if anything, and I mean anything gets, you know….” Dean flapped his hand around in the direction of Chuck’s computer on the kitchen table.</p><p>Chuck was shaking his head. “I’m not going to, uh, include any of that.”</p><p>Dean was nodding his head vigorously. “Right. No, you’re not.”</p><p>“Right.”</p><p>“And just to be perfectly clear, we’re talking about the. Uh.”</p><p>“The sex.”</p><p>“Fuck,” Dean growled as he rubbed his brow and considered punching Chuck in the face. Silence fell in the room as they looked around awkwardly, Chuck from the couch and Dean standing. And even though he was mortified about the fact that someone else knew what was going on, for the first time Dean also felt the sudden and irrational impulse to talk about it. It was dawning on him that here was the only other person on the planet who knew about him and Sam, and it was both shocking and oddly relieving. He had to stop himself from suddenly blurting out that it wasn't just about the sex. It was about how much Sam meant to him.</p><p>Ah yes, there's his anger. He thought he’d lost it.</p><p>“I really don’t like this, Chuck,” he said gruffly, feeling like he might need to kick in a door after all. “This is really not ok with me —”</p><p>“Not ok with <em>you</em>, Dean? Really? Because I could really do without waking up with a screaming headache and all those images in my head. I feel like I’ve been bad-touched all over my brain. It was bad enough at the beginning, but then you guys got, you know, more and more —” He closed his eyes again and took another drink.</p><p>“Wait, the beginning?” Dean rubbed his face and groaned. He walked over to the chair next to the couch and sat down, grabbing the bottle off the table and pouring himself another two fingers. “So how long have you been seeing, you know…?”</p><p>“Well let’s just say that when you broke into Sam’s apartment in the first book and you two rolled around on the floor? Yeah, I left out the, uh…” He looked at Dean briefly, involuntarily glancing down to Dean’s crotch, and closed his eyes again with a wince.</p><p>Dean knows exactly what he left out. Dean had stood outside Sam’s apartment for almost three hours before getting up the courage to knock on his brother’s door, and emotions had been running high all around. And then they had started to get a little too handsy during their wrestling match and it was teetering towards a full-on grope session before Sam broke it off. Who knows what would have happened if Jess hadn’t walked in. </p><p>Dean rubbed the top of his head. His skull had been hurting all night. The thought had finally hit him well past midnight that maybe Chuck was seeing everything in his visions — not just the hunts, but <em>everything</em> — and Dean spent the rest of the night pouring through the manuscripts. The only things he could find in the books were hints and blink-and-you-miss-it glances or innuendo, but nothing outright incriminating. Nothing that approached the true depth and breadth of the relationship.</p><p>“Look, Dean,” Chuck said and sighed. He slumped into the couch. “It’s none of my business what happens between you and your brother. Honestly, I know you don’t want to talk about it, and believe me, I don’t either, but —” He looked at Dean with sympathy. “I kind of get it. The two of you have no one else. All you have is each other. Two brothers on the road, you against the world. It’s what makes you compelling characters, to be honest —”</p><p>“We’re not fucking characters in your books, Chuck. We’re real people.”</p><p>“Yes, I know. Of course I know that. Well, I know it now, in any case.” He shrugged and pressed on. “Anyway, I just want you to know that I decided a long time ago that I’ll never write about your… nighttime activities. Or your three rules, or anything else that has to do with —”</p><p>“Wait, what?” Dean was actually confused for a second. </p><p>“I’ll never write about it, ok, is what I’m saying?” Chuck phrased it like a question as he looked at Dean’s face, picking up on the confusion.</p><p>“Did you say three rules? Because that’s not right. We only have two rules. The nighttime one and the daytime one.” He felt heat in his face at even saying that much, and he nodded his head as if to make Chuck understand. Because he certainly wasn’t going to get any more specific than that.</p><p>Chuck’s eyes went wide. “Oh,” he said as if realizing something. “Right. My mistake. Two rules.”</p><p>Dean squinted at the disheveled writer. He could tell when someone was lying, and Chuck seemed particularly terrible at it. </p><p>“What aren’t you telling me?”</p><p>Chuck’s face crumpled and he pulled his robe around himself. “See, this is why I hate talking to you guys. I don’t know what you know and what you don’t know and then I say something stupid —”</p><p>“Chuck.” Dean pitched his voice low with warning. He was starting to get pissed again. Fucking prophets and their fucking secrets.</p><p>Chuck opened his mouth and threw up his hands. “Hey, ask Sam, ok? I’m not getting involved in this. No, no, no. This is not my problem. I’m staying out of it.”</p><p>Dean rubbed his head again and stood up. “Fine.” He didn’t want to be here anyway. The less he thought about this, the better. “But if I ever find out you wrote any of this into your books —”</p><p>“I know, you’ll kill me.” Chuck said and swallowed. He looked like he believed it.</p><p>“I’ll gut you like a bear and leave your insides all over the lawn.”</p><p>“Got it.” Chuck pulled his robe a little closer.</p><p>Dean slammed the door on the way out.</p><p>~~--~~--~~</p><p>Sam had just gotten back from his run and he was sweaty and fully in need of a shower. The Impala was gone when he’d returned to the hotel, but Dean had been up all night obsessing about something he refused to talk about and had probably just gone to get more coffee.</p><p>Sam unlocked the door and immediately reached for a gun on the side table when he realized someone was already in the room. He put his hand over his racing heart when he saw it was Castiel.</p><p>“Dean was right, you really should wear a bell,” he said as he closed the door, threw the keys on the table and walked towards the bathroom to grab a towel.</p><p>“Sam, we need to talk,” Cas said in that deadpan way that Sam was never going to get used to. Sam could never tell if that was his “the world is about to end” voice or if Cas just saw a homeless kitten in an alley somewhere and needed to process.</p><p>“You want to wait for Dean to get back?” he said as he wiped the back of his neck.</p><p>“Definitely not.” Cas reached over and put two fingers to Sam’s forehead. Sam yelled in protest as the world whipped around him to the sound of wings.</p><p>Teleportation always made him want to puke, every single time. His ears popped with the air pressure and it felt like gravity tilted at a weird angle. One second he was in a dilapidated hotel room in Kripke's Hollow and the next he’s standing on a cliff overlooking the ocean.</p><p>“Woah, not cool, man!” Sam nearly fell over but for Cas’ iron-like grip on his arm.</p><p>“Sorry.” Cas actually looked slightly embarrassed. “I panicked.”</p><p>“Panicked? What the hell is going on, Cas? Where are we?”</p><p>He looked around. They were high on the steep cliffs of a grassy island, with the ocean far below on either side of a ridge they were standing on. A white-and-red lighthouse was further down the path, and dark clouds moved over the ocean. It was breathtakingly beautiful.</p><p>“We’re in the Faroe Islands. Sorry, it was the first place I thought of. I come here sometimes. To think.”</p><p>Sam pulled his hoodie closer as the ocean breeze blew cool on his skin. The sun broke through the clouds and painted the island in a golden light. He looked around and all he could see were a cluster of green islands in a dark blue sea.</p><p>“Ok, so why are we here? Is this a hunt?”</p><p>“No.” Cas was looking at him with large blue eyes, his hands deep in the pockets of his trenchcoat. As Sam waited for Cas to say something, he started to come to the conclusion that the angel might just stand there staring at him all day.</p><p>“Right.” He said quietly. He’d seen Cas like this before, like he was stuck and couldn’t figure out what to say or how to act. Usually — well, always — it was around Dean, but Dean wasn’t here. He sighed. “Ok, let’s sit down.” </p><p>He grabbed Cas by the arm and led him over to a place along the cliff where they could sit comfortably on the grass. He made Cas sit down and he sat a few feet away. He fixed Cas with a patient look and put his hands together. “Why are we here?”</p><p>“We need to talk.”</p><p>“Yes, you said that.” He shook his head and raised his eyebrows, opening his hands in invitation. "So?"</p><p>“Yes. Talking.” Cas swallowed hard and looked at his hands. “I thought you should know that Dean is currently having a conversation with Chuck about your night-time activities.”</p><p>Sam stopped breathing for a second as understanding hit him. He took in another deep breath and let it out loudly, running his fingers through his hair. That’s why Dean had been up all night reading Chuck’s books. “He finally figured it out.”</p><p>Cas looked up at him sharply, watching him closely, and then nodded. “You had already thought of it.”</p><p>“It was the first thing I looked for when we bought the books. But it was pretty clear to me that Chuck hadn’t put anything in them so far, so it seemed unlikely he would if he ever published again. I didn’t worry about it.”</p><p>Cas narrowed his eyes. “I expected you to be more concerned.”</p><p>Sam shrugged. “I am concerned, but mostly about Dean. He’s going to flip his shit over this.”</p><p>“Yes,” Cas nodded solemnly. “That was my thought as well.”</p><p>Sam smiled, thinking of Cas having that thought, or swearing at all, for that matter. Cas just frowned at him.</p><p>“So it doesn’t bother you that Chuck knows?"</p><p>“Cas, we have so many other things to worry about right now. This thing with the seals and finding Lillith and saving the world, we kinda have our hands full.”</p><p>“I see.” Cas looked away towards the horizon, but there was distress in his eyes and a tightness to his mouth. Sam took a deep breath and nodded.</p><p>“You don’t approve. Of course you don’t. You’re an angel of the lord.”</p><p>“What?” Cas looked up surprised. “No, it’s not…. Contrary to popular opinion, Heaven is not concerned about the consensual sexual behavior of adults. That’s not something that we typically —” he looked at his hands again, “— concern ourselves with.”</p><p>“But you’re worried.” It wasn’t a question. The concern was all over Castiel’s face.</p><p>Cas looked up at Sam and seemed to make a decision. He looked around as if to see if anyone was listening — they were on the top of an empty island, so Sam just shook his head — and Cas leaned forward. </p><p>“Sam, you need to know something. Something that you won’t find in your books, or at least not in the reliable ones. But I knew it the moment I saw Dean’s soul, when I gripped him tight and —”</p><p>“— raised him from perdition, yeah, yeah,” Sam said at the same time as Cas and then rolled his eyes. He nodded impatiently for Cas to continue.</p><p>“Dean has a soulmate.”</p><p>The air in Sam’s lungs rushed out of him like he’d been punched. White spots started appearing in the corner of his eyes and he involuntarily rubbed his chest. Pain squeezed his insides, shooting through his bones.</p><p>“He what?”</p><p>“It’s you, Sam. You’re his soulmate.”</p><p>Sam just sat there in stunned silence. Random images of him and Dean over the years flooded his mind, the soothing touches and flashed smiles, the deep need to see each other safe, to seek each other out. The emptiness he felt when Dean was in hell, the need to fill that space with something, anything.</p><p>“I don’t… I didn’t think that was a real thing.”</p><p>“It’s very rare.” Cas stood and looked out over the ocean. “There have only been a handful of them over the millennia, and all of them were like binary stars shining in the darkness. Adam and Eve. Anthony and Cleopatra. Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal. Most of them have been a man and woman, destined to be together in life and death. But some of them…”</p><p>He looked over at Sam, his face serious. “Some have been family.  It was the love and devotion between Jane and Cassandra Austen that gave rise to Jane’s creative inspiration. They lived together for all of Jane’s life, and after she died, Cassandra was devastated. That is, until she died many decades later and they were reunited in Heaven.”</p><p>Cas turned to Sam, his eyes sparkling in the sun. “You and Dean have a connection, a bond that no one can break, not even angels. It is written into the fabric of the universe, and no matter what happens to either of you, you are destined to be together for all eternity. Two bright souls bound together.” </p><p>Cas’ eyes were glowing with awe, as if he were both amazed and happy for them but also heartbroken at the same time. “I just wanted you to know that I am on your side, that I will protect you and your secret and the love you have with Dean, for as long as I am alive on this Earth. You have my word. I will never interfere or come between you.” He dropped his eyes at the end and swayed a little, his shoulders sinking as if a heavy weight had settled upon him.</p><p>Sam sat there and absorbed all of this, soaked it up as it broke through the clouds in his mind. It confirmed so many things that he had thought and felt over the years, all of the turmoil and blind devotion he and his brother shared. All of the times that they went way beyond the boundaries of brotherhood, of lovers, of friends or family. Dean was everything to him, the only thing that made sense in the universe. If he had a soul, then it was Dean's.</p><p> As he blinked and came back into the moment, he noticed Cas' body language and finally registered the last thing he said. Never come between them? A light switched in his mind as he watched the angel, and he stood and reached for his shoulder. Cas wouldn’t meet his eyes.</p><p>“Cas, wait. Are you…?” </p><p>Cas closed his eyes for a moment, but then his face rearranged itself again into a more neutral state, closing up whatever emotion was passing through him. </p><p>But Sam had to know. He had to ask.</p><p>“Castiel, are you in love with Dean?”</p><p>Cas’ eyes were hard when they finally looked at Sam. He didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. Sam squeezed Cas’ shoulder as he finally understood. Cas dropped his head briefly, then got a distant look as he stared into a middle space.</p><p>“Dean is wondering where you are,” he said quietly. “We should get back.”</p><p>“Wait, Cas —” But Cas reached two fingers up and the world tilted again. He stumbled as his feet hit the carpet, and they were back in the hotel room.</p><p>~~--~~--~~</p><p>Dean thought maybe he was having an aneurysm. He had come back to the hotel room and Sam was gone, which wasn’t that unusual. Sam went on a run most mornings. But then he found Sam's keys on the table, and a wet towel on the floor, and as he grabbed a beer from the minifridge and texted Sam’s phone, it buzzed on the bedside table — and all this just ratcheted up his whiskey-fueled anxiety. Sam wouldn’t leave the hotel without his keys.</p><p>"Cas." Goddammit. Chuck had been talking to Cas.</p><p>He closed his eyes and sat on the end of the bed. Praying only worked if he was actually trying to communicate, not just shouting into the void. “Oh holy Castiel, hallowed be thine feathery ass, etcetera and so forth, I don’t suppose you know where my brother is? Because he’s not here and I really need to talk to him and for some reason you’ve been chatting with Chuck, which kind of pisses me off, the more I think about it, and I don’t even want to know —”</p><p>A flurry of wing noises rushed into the room and Dean stood up from where he was sitting on the bed. Cas was standing next to Sam with his hand on his shoulder and both of them looking winded.</p><p>“What the fuck, Cas. Why do you have my brother?” Dean knew he was yelling and drunk, but at the moment, he simply couldn't be bothered to care. Of course, before he could say another word, Cas simply disappeared just as quickly as he came. Dean threw up his hand and sat down on the bed.</p><p>“Well that’s just awesome.” He rubbed his face and took another swig off his beer.</p><p>Sam stood there, his hands out like he was trying to protect himself from something and looking like he was about to fall over. He blinked several times and then slowly sat down in the chair next to the table.</p><p>“Where did he take you?”</p><p>“Um, somewhere in the Atlantic maybe? I’m not sure.”</p><p>“The Atlantic?”</p><p>“Yeah, an island he liked.”</p><p>“An island. Cas took you to an island.”</p><p>“Yes, and that wasn’t the weirdest part.”</p><p>Dean groaned and put his head in his hands. This day just keeps getting better and better. “What was the weirdest part?” He waited for a few moments, but when Sam didn’t answer he put his head up and looked at his brother. Sam’s eyes were still a little wide, but now he was rubbing his chin, deep in thought. “You gonna tell me what you and Cas were doing frolicking on some island?”</p><p>Sam looked at him with an unsure expression, but then he glanced at Dean’s beer and walked over to the mini-fridge. He reached in and grabbed a beer.</p><p>“What, you’re joining me? It must be pretty bad.”</p><p>Sam popped the top and came over to the bed, sitting right next to Dean so their legs and shoulders were touching. The feel of his brother’s body heat eased something inside him, and he felt his whole body relax a little.</p><p>“Ok, you first,” Sam said after he took a long pull on the beer. “How was Chuck?”</p><p>“Cas told you about that, huh? Yeah, well, Chuck’s an asshole, but I don’t think he’s gonna —” He stuttered to a stop. He was so crap at talking. What was his problem? Even after all these years, habits die hard. He cleared his throat and lowered his voice nonetheless. “I told him I’d gut him if he ever wrote about you and me — in, you know, that way.”</p><p>Sam huffed a laugh and looked at him with raised eyebrows. “You really have a way with people, you know that?”</p><p>“Sure, Princess Leia, whatever. Ok, your turn.” Sam took a deep breath and held it, like he was trying to find the words, but Sam’s hesitancy jogged something in Dean’s alcohol-fueled brain. “Oh wait, I forgot, before we get to that, Chuck said something about three rules. He said I should ask you about it. What was he talking about?”</p><p>Sam's mouth opened slightly and he actually blushed. A full-on, red-cheeked, fluttered eyelashes, all-the-way-up-his-neck blush. Dean leaned back and looked at his brother to make sure he was seeing this correctly. </p><p>“Are you serious? You have some top-secret third rule you’re not telling me about?”</p><p>Sam put his hands together and rubbed his forehead on his thumbs. “Dean, can we get into bed if we’re going to talk about this?”</p><p>“We need to…? Ok, now you’re scaring me. What’s going on, Sam?”</p><p>“Just…” he reached over and grabbed Dean’s collar, pulling him close so their faces were an inch apart, their foreheads resting together. “Please?”</p><p>Dean had absolutely no defenses against Sam when he was like this, when he was close and intimate and quiet, whispering just to him. Every protective instinct kicked in, and even though he knew sometimes Sam used it to manipulate him and get his way, Dean didn’t care. He’d do anything for his brother when he was like this. He brushed his hand down Sam’s head and nodded.</p><p>They closed up all the curtains and turned off all the lights, a habit they'd been slowly dropping over the years of being on the road together, just the two of them. They undressed and crawled in bed. Sam was cold and a little damp, and Dean wrapped his body around his brother, pulling him in tight and rubbing his shoulders. Sam had gotten huge in the past few years, and sometimes it felt like cuddling a Mack truck, but he tucked Sam’s head under his chin, the same way he’d done since they were kids, and he stroked Sam’s hair. Dean could feel his heart beating fast in his chest, but he willed it to slow.</p><p>“Talk to me, baby brother. What’s going on?”</p><p>Sam was still for a few more breaths. He finally took in one last deep breath and then he spoke, his voice quiet but steady. “You know that I love you, right?”</p><p>Dean frowned. “Yes, of course I do.”</p><p>“And I know that you love me.”</p><p>“Uh…” It almost sounded like the beginning of a break up speech. Like one of those “we love each other but we can’t be together” talks, like Sam was trying to figure out how to give him the news. He opened his mouth and breathed out slowly. “Sam?”</p><p>Sam pulled back and looked at Dean in the darkness. “The third rule is that I’m never going to love anyone else.”</p><p>Dean’s mouth dropped open. This was not what he had expected. It wasn't something they had ever talked about either. They’d always skirted around the fact that they saw other people sometimes, that they both had hooked up. Other than the fact that Sam had been banging Ruby, which was never going to be ok with Dean for obvious reasons, they had slept with other people because…. </p><p>Dean was trying to remember why they slept with other people.</p><p>Sam’s eyes were large and dark in the gloom of the hotel room, and Dean could feel the vibrating energy that was rolling off him in waves. He was scared, scared at what Dean would say, probably. Scared that he would get angry. </p><p>But apparently Sam wasn’t done talking yet either.</p><p>“And Castiel just confirmed it.”</p><p>“What?” Dean’s voice was quiet and breathy, a whisper that escaped his lips. </p><p>Sam leaned forward and kissed his forehead. He cupped Dean’s cheeks in his hands and kissed his lips, soft and gentle in a way that they hadn’t kissed in a while. There had been so much violence and anger between them in the past several months, so much distrust and heartbreak, and there had been times that Dean wasn’t sure what was going to happen with the two of them. But every time they came back together, they always forgave each other, always gave in to each other.</p><p>No matter what happened, Dean would always come back to Sam.</p><p>Sam was pressing their foreheads together, as close as they could get and still speak. His eyes were closed as he spoke softly.</p><p>“Dean, you are the only one for me. There will never be anyone else. I’ve known this since before I went away to college, back when we were teenagers, but I didn’t know if it was something that you wanted. You always seemed to pick up women everywhere we went, and …” He shook his head. “I just didn’t want to push it. As long as I had you most nights, it was enough.”</p><p>He leaned back again and looked at Dean in the darkness, still holding his face. “But Cas….” He stopped and closed his eyes again, his head drooping a little. Dean reached up and held Sam’s head in his hands so they were both there, holding each other in the darkness.</p><p>“Tell me,” he whispered. “Tell me, Sam.”</p><p>Sam swallowed and his voice dropped down so it was barely audible. “Cas said that we are soulmates, Dean. That the two of us are bound together, that we can never be split apart, not for long anyway. That we will live and die together and be together for … well, forever.”</p><p>Dean rubbed Sam’s cheeks and ducked his head to try to see his brother as clearly as he could in the darkness. Sam was shaking slightly, his hands twitching in Dean’s hair, and he knew then that Sam was absolutely serious. </p><p>And he knew it was true. It was true in every fiber of his being.</p><p>They were eternal. Destined to be together. Soulbound.</p><p>Dean rolled Sam over and kissed him. In that moment, he didn’t care about angels and the end of the world. He didn’t care about prophecies or destiny. All that mattered was the precious man in his arms and the realization for the first time in his miserable life that maybe there’s a reason for this powerful magnetic pull between him and his brother. Maybe they were meant to be and he didn’t have to hide it or resist it. </p><p>Maybe Sam was the one for him too. The only one.</p><p>As he gave his brother hot kisses, their hands heavy and urgent on each other as they took off the rest of their clothing, there was no longer any doubt in Dean’s mind. Sam was the only one for him too.</p>
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